


scream hallelujah if it's a thing that helps you breathe.

by coastal-shelf (mysilenceknot)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Painplay, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysilenceknot/pseuds/coastal-shelf
Summary: She’s the only person fully dressed during scenes like these, a way to signify that she’s separate from the action. An observing party and not a participant.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from a conversation I had with [st4rlabsforever](http://archiveofourown.org/users/omaken/pseuds/st4rlabsforever) about Barriscowest post-Flashpoint. Title comes from the song [Axe to Grind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CnfPPJmC_M) by Bastille ft. Tyde and Rationale.

Iris sits on a chair, legs crossed, and watches the men quietly.

Cisco has switched up his rhythm. He lands a blow with the riding crop against Barry every ten seconds or so, taking time to carefully decide what area of Barry’s body he wants to mark next. He’s calculating but not cold; his bright eyes have focus and determination. The scene has taken a good amount of physical energy from him and Iris can see the sweat prickling his brow and shining on his bare chest.

The only noises in the room are the sound of the crop swishing through the air before meeting flesh and Barry’s cries of pain.

Barry’s eyes are closed. He’s facing Iris, arms bound above his head and attached to an enforced ring in the middle of the ceiling. When the scene had started, he’d been standing fully with his legs kept apart with the spreader bar and his arms had barely stretched above him. Now the ropes were carrying most of his weight. His face is a splotchy red and wet from the combination of his sweat and tears.

Iris knows that despite Barry’s healing factor, his back is a darker shade of red from the intensity of the spanking and flogging he’d received today. Most of the marks on the front of his upper thighs had begun to fade since Cisco changed the focus of his attack, but there were still some darker welts that were taking longer to disappear.

Cisco pauses, pushing some stray hairs that’d come out of his ponytail back up. He walks a circle around Barry slowly, taking a full look at his work. One hand rests on his own hip, the other still holds the crop but hangs to his side. When he walks the circle the second time, he occasionally lets the tip of the crop brush against Barry’s skin. Barry jolts away from each touch.

She’s the only person fully dressed during scenes like these, a way to signify that she’s separate from the action. An observing party and not a participant.

Barry had been the one to approach her a few weeks earlier about adding these scenes to their collective dynamic. Understandably it’d taken Barry and Cisco a while to feel comfortable enough to end the relatively mutual break they’d taken in their relationship. It’d taken even longer for them to trust each other enough to integrate d/s play back into their relationship and while Iris knew that Cisco and Barry did absolutely trust each other again, they didn’t seem to completely trust themselves. Not with this, with Cisco letting out his anger and grief physically, with Barry craving a physical punishment to help appease the heavy guilt he carried.

So they turned to Iris to act as a support. She’d done d/s play with each of them individually and as a trio they’d done a variety of things together, each switching roles depending on the day and their moods. This was different. This was her being trusted to know the needs and unspoken signals of both of her boyfriends and for them to trust her calls if she felt things were teetering towards a line they didn’t want to cross.

Cisco stops teasing Barry with the crop. He stops in front of Barry at an angle in a way that still lets Iris see his face.

“Color?” Cisco asks. Barry seems to struggle with the question, scrunching his eyes more tightly shut and tilting his head away from Cisco. Cisco and Iris wait, giving Barry time to catch his breath. After half a minute passes Cisco asks again.

“Color?”

“Green.”

Cisco turns his head to make eye contact with Iris.

There hasn’t been a day where she’s had to interrupt a scene, but she’s still there to help make judgement calls for both of them. Although the day had been a relative success and The Flash had finally captured the meta who’d been terrorizing the city all week, Barry had been slightly off since morning. And while she knew that he’d needed the scene today and that he hadn’t been pushed to his limits, she also knew that it’d take a lot more energy for all of them to come down than it usually did. Iris also knew that Barry was kicking himself to some degree for how long it’d taken for Hazard to be stopped.

She shakes her head once.

“Barry,” Cisco says softly, turning back to his boyfriend, “I’m going to uncuff your legs now, okay?”

“I’m fine, I can take it, we don’t have to stop.”

“I know you can handle it, you’ve been doing so well for me and you can handle anything. But I’m going to uncuff you and help you to the bed, okay?”

He waits until Barry responds with an “okay” before touching him.

This is Iris’s cue to move into action as well. As Cisco bends down to open the restraints, Iris gets up from where she’d been sitting to pick up the supplies on the night stand. Cisco removes the ropes from Barry’s wrists and carefully wraps one arm around his waist to keep him from falling. Iris hands a glass of water to Cisco for Barry.

Her involvement in the aftercare is mostly to make the process as easy for each of them as possible. Cisco likes to keep physical contact with Barry at the end of a scene to help pull him back out of his head space, giving him the gentle rubs and kisses he’d been denied during the scene. He also talks non stop, accepting the nonsensical apologies Barry tends to try to give after these scenes, reassuring Barry that they were okay, praising Barry for how good he was. Iris hands off water and ointment to Cisco as he and Barry navigate from the center of the room to the bed.

Iris knows they want her there, but sometimes it almost feels a little too personal for her because their shared trauma is something that she’ll never fully be apart of. And yet, without fail, whenever the doubt over her role at the end of a scene starts creeping in, Barry and Cisco bring her back to them.

She sits carefully at the edge of the bed and watches him gently rub ointment into Barry’s inflamed skin. Barry’s lying across Cisco’s lap, head turned toward Cisco. His tears haven’t stopped but they’ve slowed down and his crying has died down to a whimper. Cisco’s humming to him as he works. Iris is close enough that she could reach out and run her fingers in Barry’s hair, but she doesn’t. Instead she looks up from his slightly shivering form to look at Cisco’s sad smile.

“Hey,” she says, getting ready to ask him if he needs anything more from her.

“Stay,” he replies, moving his gaze to match hers, inviting her into the moment he’s having with Barry. As he speaks Barry tilts his head up and opens his eyes. 

“Please,” he says to Iris. “Stay.” She reaches out and touches his face; he leans into her hand and grabs it with one of his own. Iris slips off her flats and scoots further into the bed until she’s right next to Cisco. He kisses her forehead as she begins to run her fingers through Barry’s hair like she’d wanted to.

“Thank you,” Cisco says.

“Any time,” she responds.


End file.
